Our Last Echoes

by Kate Alice Marshall

  “How big is this place?” I asked.

  “It can’t be that big,” Lily said. “No more than a few rooms. They must not be in here.”

  “We need to check,” I insisted.

  She was shaking her head, and she made a reluctant sound in the back of her throat. I knew what she was feeling because I felt it too. Like the rush of beetles away from a light. A skittering and chittering in the air that you couldn’t hear but you could feel—something here, something wrong, but nothing that you could put words to.

  To her credit, she gritted her teeth and walked farther in. Our steps had an odd, crumpled quality to them, as if the walls were drinking in the sound. Beyond the downed door was a low-ceilinged room. Ancient tables and chairs moldered, some knocked over, others sagging in place. Another door stood open at the end of the room, leading to a storage closet. Near it, a metal staircase led downward.

  “They must have gone down,” I said. I stepped toward the stairs, but that insect-crawling feeling intensified until I could swear I should have seen them scurrying over my limbs.

  “We shouldn’t be here,” Lily said.

  “It’s okay. Give me the flashlight. I’ll go.”

  For a moment, she seemed tempted. Then she muttered, “You’re just a kid.” She took a deep breath and stalked past me. I followed.

  Lily shone the flashlight down the stairwell. The steps were rusted. They didn’t look very safe, but we were going to have to go down. Because there was another footprint at the top of the stairs, right where we were standing. The same waffle print as the one out front. Except this one wasn’t made of mud. It was blood. Blood was smeared on the wall leading down, too, and glistened on the rusting metal steps.

  “We should go get help,” Lily said.

  A bang reverberated through the bunker as the door to the outside slammed shut.

  PART THREE

  CERTAIN FATHOMS IN THE EARTH

  VIDEO EVIDENCE

  Recorded by Abigail Ryder

  JUNE 30, 2018, 8:16 AM

  The camera switches on, focusing on the hillside and the empty, cloudless sky. It pans around slowly until it reaches Liam Kapoor.

  LIAM: So. Care to take a romantic jaunt into the bowels of the earth?

  ABBY: Let’s agree, right now, that we are not going to try to keep up that ridiculous lie when we don’t absolutely have to.

  LIAM: If it makes you feel any better, I regret it deeply.

  Abby snorts.

  ABBY: If all my relationships are lies, at least I’m in on this one.

  LIAM: You’re talking about your boss. Dr. Ashford.

  ABBY: He always told us that he was hunting the creature that killed our parents, but he didn’t know why it came after us. He claimed he had no idea who we were. But that video was from fourteen years ago, so not only was my grandfather—and my father—somehow aware of the supernatural, Ashford knew it. Long before he ever showed up at our house.

  LIAM: You’d think between the three of us we could scrape up a functioning parental figure.

  ABBY: What about “Shakespeare mum”?

  LIAM: Okay, fair point, that’s one. Still a pathetic average.

  Liam huffs a bit as they reach the site of the bunker. The door is shut and covered in a mottled layer of rust.

  LIAM: And here we are. The forbidden bunker.

  ABBY: Does it open?

  LIAM: You know, I don’t know. I’ve honestly never been tempted to explore it.

  There’s a beat as they stare at each other.

  LIAM: Oh, I’m sorry. You want me to go first. I suppose it’s the gentlemanly thing to get eaten first.

  ABBY: It’s less about you getting eaten before me, and more that when you get eaten I need to capture it on camera.

  LIAM: That’s much better. Very reassuring.

  He walks up to the door and hauls on it. The metal squeaks, but there’s no appreciable movement.

  ABBY: Hold on. I’ll help.

  She sets the camera down on a rock—it is already mounted on a small tripod—and makes sure it’s trained on the door. Together, they strain to pull on the handle, but other than a slightly louder squeal, this produces no result.

  LIAM: Ah. Damn. Look, it’s been welded shut. We’ll never get that open.

  Abby runs a finger along the welded seam. It’s hardly precision work, but it is thorough.

  ABBY: That’s a lot of effort to protect some empty rooms. Considering the only people who come here are, theoretically, trained professionals.

  LIAM: Yes, but they’re also field scientists.

  ABBY: Which means what?

  LIAM: Field scientists are particularly noted for their tendency to do questionable things in pursuit of discovery. The things they will lick in the name of science would astound you.

  ABBY: Wait. Hush.

  She holds up a finger, tilting her head toward the door in concentration. Liam looks confused but complies. His eyes widen. He presses his ear to the door.

  LIAM: It’s coming from in there.

  Abby glances around, chewing on her lip.

  ABBY: Maybe there’s another way in.

  Liam shakes his head.

  LIAM: Just the one entrance.

  ABBY: That you know of. We should check anyway. Geography is negotiable under these circumstances.

  LIAM: You sound like you’re quoting someone.

  ABBY: Ashford.

  LIAM: Ah.

  She clears her throat and looks away.

  ABBY: That damn music. I—

  LIAM: Something just moved down there.

  He points. Abby squints in the direction he indicates, down the slope.

  ABBY: I don’t see anything. Wait. What is that?

  LIAM: It’s a bird. I think it’s hurt. Look at the way it’s moving.

  He moves toward it.

  ABBY: Hold on. Where do you think you’re going?

  LIAM: They’re endangered. The LARC does rehab too. If it’s hurt, I’ll have to call the others to come collect it.

  He strides off.

  Grumbling, she follows him. Their footsteps fade as they move off-screen.*

  ABBY: So? Is it [hurt]?

  LIAM: [Indistinct]

  ABBY: What are you doing? [Indistinct]

  The microphone picks up a new sound, a strange, discordant humming.

  The door swings open.

  Beyond is darkness; the camera, adjusted for the bright daylight, shows only flat black. And yet something moves within. The image is too grainy to make out any detail. In one frame it seems as if it might be a person; in another, it seems to expand, as if many wings are unfurling around it. The shape recedes; the strange humming swells.

  LIAM: We need [to go/to know].

  ABBY: What’s that on your hands? Where’s the bird? Liam—

  LIAM: It’s [near/here].

  ABBY: Liam, look at me. Damn it.

  Several seconds pass. Then Liam walks back into frame. He walks steadily, eyes fixed ahead, hands by his sides. Something black and viscous drips from his fingers, the substance coating his right hand all the way to the wrist.

  Abby follows at a wary distance. When she sees the open door, she lets out a hiss between her teeth. Liam never breaks his stride as he heads in.

  ABBY: All right, then. We’re doing this.

  She picks up the camera and follows.

  19

  WE RAN FOR the door together, the flashlight beam bouncing over toppled tables and chairs and casting crazed shadows on the walls. I skidded around the corner first. The door was shut tight. I walked up to it and shoved with a shaking hand. It didn’t budge.

  “Let me try,” Lily said. I knew it wouldn’t work, but I stepped aside. As she
pushed and strained, I wandered back toward the other room. There were drips of something on the floor I hadn’t noticed before. Not blood, I thought, kneeling.

  The flashlight beam fell across me as Lily abandoned her efforts, and I touched a finger to the black blot. It had the texture of motor oil, slippery and thick. I rubbed it between my thumb and the pad of my finger. A thin tongue of smoky black rose up, and it vanished, boiling off into the air. I smelled something sharp and astringent, like cleaning fluid. The same liquid that had oozed from the bird skull.

  “It won’t open,” Lily said unnecessarily.

  “Only one way to go, then,” I said. Of course we would go down. It was as inescapable as gravity. “Give me the flashlight. I’ll go first.” This time there was no protest. She handed the flashlight over. I hoped it had fresh batteries.

  I walked with steady purpose to the top of the stairs. More black drips on the ground; I’d gone right past them before. The bloodstains were still there. If they were bleeding, I thought grimly, at least they were alive.

  The first step creaked alarmingly under my foot as I descended, but the stairway held. I eased myself down. There were ten steps before a landing, more metal bolted into the concrete shaft. I stopped there and shone the light down the next expanse of stairs, leaning out over the rail a bit to see how far down I could see. Two more flights before the next level. The bottom was concrete, but I couldn’t make it out well from this distance.

  “Why would they come down here?” Lily asked, barely above a whisper. Her voice seemed to breed in the shadows, hushed echoes swarming down the stairwell ahead of us.

  “They were invited,” I said. She stared at me. I stared back. I had no idea why I’d said that. “Ask me another question,” I suggested, curious.

  “What’s down there?” she asked.

  “A crack in the world,” I answered automatically.

  “You’re fucking with me,” she said. I shook my head, unable to speak through the fear closing up my throat. Why had I said that? It was like someone else was answering with my voice. “Where are Abby and Liam?”

  “The memory room,” I replied.

  “This is a weird prank to pull,” Lily said. “For the record, you have succeeded in freaking me out, and it’s cool if you stop anytime.”

  I let that hang. It wouldn’t do any good to argue with her. If thinking it was a prank let her hold herself together, it was for the best. I had no such illusions to fall back on.

  I reached the bottom of the steps. Another metal door blocked the way forward, another bloody footprint staining the ground in front of it, but at least it wasn’t more stairs.

  “What do you think is on the other side of that door?” Lily asked. I stepped forward to answer her by hauling open the door.

  The room beyond was circular, and large enough that the flashlight only reached the middle. But that was enough to illuminate Liam, sitting cross-legged with his back to us, shoulders hunched and head low.

  The floor sloped toward a drain in the center of the room, and Liam sat beside it. I approached, flashlight shaking. Lily stayed right at my elbow, her breath loud in my ear. Liam was holding something cradled in his lap. I edged around him.

  It was a bird. A tern, or part of one—one white wing, a quivering side, a neck bent violently to the left and a single eye pinning and flaring. But the rest of it was gone, body giving way to viscous black that dripped between Liam’s fingers, over his forearms, as the bird shuddered and strained and shook.

  “Shh,” Liam crooned to the bird. “Shh, it’s all right.”

  Its wing extended, fluttering, the movements like the spasms of dying muscles. Lily swore under her breath. I choked back a sour taste in my throat. The drips of black liquid slid down the sloped floor and into the drain. The bird tried to lift its head, but it no longer had the right muscles in its neck, and it flopped down again. A gurgling sound came from its throat. It sounded of drowning.

  “Put that down,” I said.

  “It’s hurt,” Liam said.

  “There’s something really wrong with it, Liam. You need to put it down,” I said. “Liam, where’s Abby?”

  “She left on wings of shadow. Two and two and two,” he said, singsong. “Hush, hush.” His thumb stroked the side of the bird’s neck.

  I put my hand on his forearm, above the dripping black. “Liam. Liam. Let go of the—”

  “No!” he shouted. His hands closed around the bird, clenching, fingers digging into the feathered chest. There was a sound like paper crumpling. Black liquid burst from the bird’s skin where Liam’s fingers dug in, and the bird thrashed and came apart in his hands, stringy tendons stretching like taffy, feathers turning black and bubbling into smoke, and then the bird was gone and all that was left was the black liquid sliding down his skin, running down the drain.

  Lily screamed. Maybe I did, too, but that was nothing next to the desolate sound that ripped free of Liam’s throat. He dropped down and clawed at the drain as if he could stop the flow of the liquid, as if he could bring the bird back, and then he sobbed, hands limp on his knees. I pulled him against me, holding tight as his shoulders shook with his ragged gasps of breath. He was cold to the touch. I think I said something, but I don’t remember what it was, soothing nothings that he probably couldn’t understand anyway. But after a few minutes or a few seconds—you lose track of time during moments like this—he pulled away from me. His hand went to his temple. He drew in a breath and let it out in a rush.

  “Hey,” I said softly. “You back with us?”

  He swallowed. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m here.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “Where’s Abby?”

  His eyebrows drew together, a look of intense concentration on his face as he tried to string together fragmented memories into narrative. “I can’t— There were wings. So many wings. And there was the voice. Singing. It said . . . It said one of us could stay. It said choose. I wanted to go, but she stopped me.” He looked away, an expression of shame passing over his face.

  “Who took her?” I asked. “Was it the big man, Mikhail’s double?”

  But he only pointed behind me. Behind Lily. We looked at each other and turned slowly.

  The wall behind us was covered in strange designs. Someone had taken paint to the concrete walls and turned them into a chaotic mass of handprints, spirals, random phrases, people rendered like cave painting stick figures. White Vs with flecks of red, terns, wheeled about. All of the paintings were layered, one thing painted over another until you could hardly see an inch of concrete or pick out one figure from another.

  But in the center, stretching from floor to ceiling and snaking out to the sides, was a massive human figure—mostly human. Arms outstretched as if in benediction, face black and blank except for two empty holes where their eyes ought to be. Huge wings, six of them, emerged from the figure’s shoulders—they were the wings of a tern, angular and elegant. The wings were not solid, not like the central figure. They were made of overlapping letters, words written in overlapping lines until most were incomprehensible. Here and there I picked out meaning.

  six-wing—song—it brings the mist—little bird—warden—she dreams—she drowns—

  The words dripped from the wings, turning into rambling, mad sentences, braided together in overlapping strands like a woven rope, hardly any more comprehensible.

  Seven kings seven kingdoms seven gates seven worlds—

  —drowned beneath the sea but the road still—

  —went to meet the bramble man and—

  —lacuna house, and time twists—

  —six wings, the dreamer—

  —the girl and the ghost—

  I followed the rambling thread of them, gliding through snatches of what might have been poetry or prophecy or prayers—and then, there, in the intersection of tw
o threads, was a house. There was nothing terribly remarkable about it. A single story, a bay window in the front, a tree beside it. Nothing remarkable except that I knew it. It was the house I’d lived in after my mother died, my first foster home. The one that lasted the longest before they realized something was wrong with the lost little girl they’d wanted to love.

  It couldn’t be. No one on this island could know what it looked like. But it was.

  “We need to get out of here,” Lily said.

  My mouth was so dry my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. “We need to find Abby,” I said, though it felt as if my voice was coming from very far away.

  I followed the course of the ropes of words with my flashlight. Opposite the image of the Six-Wing, on the far right from where we’d entered, the words formed an arch above a doorway, a black gap in the wall, leading on. Leading deeper. Another bloody footprint stained the ground just in front of it. Liam wasn’t hurt. That meant that Abby must be. “There,” I said.

  “You heard Liam. She said not to,” Lily replied. Her voice was frail. She was holding up pretty well, but things were still skating along the edge of the possible. It would get worse if we went deeper. I knew it. Lily knew it.

  “There’s only one way she could have gone,” I said. I tore my eyes away from the painting. My mother, the house, my double. This place was focused on me in a way I didn’t understand. I couldn’t escape its gravity, but maybe Lily could. “Wait here with Liam. I’ll go.”

  I bent, fetching Liam’s flashlight from where it lay on the ground. I handed it over.

  “I shouldn’t let you go,” Lily said. Guilt in her voice.

  “You wouldn’t be able to stop me.” I turned toward the black hole. Lily made a noise in a final protest, but I knew she was relieved to be staying behind.

  I approached the darkened doorway. The edges were rough. They hadn’t been part of the bunker, I thought, but chiseled out of the wall after it was built. The space beyond was more tunnel than hallway, the walls rough and rocky. Natural caves beneath the island, maybe? But it seemed too straight for that, and while the rock wasn’t smooth like a manmade tunnel would be, it had odd marks, almost ripples, that seemed too regular to be random.